Search and Ye Shall Find or Will Ye?

Less than fifteen years ago, someone looking for a plumber might have turned to the yellow pages, the local newspaper or even a next-door neighbor for a telephone number or recommendation. Today, that someone is more likely to go online and use a search engine, like Google or Yahoo, to find that same plumber. In a world full of endless choices, how do you standout? Three words…search engine visibility.

According to Steve Rubel, senior vice president and director of insights for Edelman Digital and co-author of Search Engine Visibility: An Edelman Digital Position Paper, businesses today employ four tactics to maximize their search engine visibility. These tactics are paid search, optimized search, reputational search and social search.

Paid search, or search engine marketing (SEM), according to Rubel, is an advertising paradigm in which marketers purchase small text ads that are triggered when certain keywords are searched. For example, links for Toyota appear in the sponsored links sections at the top and right of the search engine results page (SERP) when searching for the keywords "hybrid cars" at Google.com. Because Toyota purchased keywords, such as hybrid cards, its links will appear in the sponsored links sections of the SERPs as illustrated in the image below.

The second tactic is optimized search (SEO), which, according to Rubel, is a technical process in which webmasters adjust their sites in an effort to rank well organically on high-value keywords. This tactic, if done successfully, incorporates elements both on and off the page, including fresh quality content (text), networked relationships (links), keywords and descriptions.

For example, look at the image above, but more specifically, at the first organic result listed in the SERP below the sponsored links for http://www.hybridcars.com/. Notice the description for this site? It wasn’t chosen by accident. In fact, this description was cleverly placed off the page by the webmaster. If you visit this site and view the source code, you’ll see code for the description. Notice that it’s the same as the one listed in the SERP? Search engines like Google look for these descriptions and use them to rank the results.

Another tool that improves a site’s rank is keywords. If you visit hybridcars.com, you’ll notice several keywords, like “hybrid cars”, both on and off the page. Search engines love text and what better way to feed a hungry search engine than with keywords on your site.

Speaking of text, did you notice that hybridcars.com is mostly text, and more specifically, constantly updated text? Quality content that changes frequently and includes keywords draws attention from search engines and greatly improves the rank of your site in SERPs.

Last, but not least, search engines love links. No man is an island, offline or online, and search engines like Google recognize that. As such, these search engines will improve a site’s rank with each new reciprocal link it acquires. The more traffic these links provide, the higher the site’s rank will be as evident by hybridcars.com’s rank in the image above.

So having learned about SEM and SEO, it’s now time to touch briefly on reputational search and social search. As mentioned previously, reputational search is the third tactic for search engine visibility. According to Rubel, reputational search is the blending of basic SEO tactics with classic PR approaches. The objective is not only to generate media and/or social media coverage, but also to do so in a way that can influence search results. By incorporating fresh quality content (text), networked relationships (links), keywords and descriptions into traditional PR tactics, such as press releases, corporate newsrooms, media relations and blogger engagement, PR practitioners can join in the fun and increase a company’s search engine visibility.

The fourth and final search engine visibility tactic is social search. According to Rubel, those who establish meaningful presence in social networks will not only generate conversation and build relationships but also establish "link equity" that makes them more visible on search engines. As a PR practitioner, you can establish that meaningful presence and increase your company’s search engine visibility.

For more information about search engine visibility, check out Search Engine Visibility: An Edelman Digital Position Paper or subscribe to one or more of Steve Rubel’s blogs, like Micro Persuasion, The Steve Rubel Lifestream or Steve Rubel's Friend Feed.

Until next time,

dp

Stayed tuned for more reports on my student adventures in public relations and new media.